My writer friend Emily sends me a Harold Pinter quote: "What I write has no obligation other than to itself. My responsibility is not to audiences, critics, producers, directors, actors or to my fellow men in general, but to the play in hand, simply."
"The theatre is a large, energetic, public activity. Writing is, for me, a completely private activity; a poem or a play, no difference. These facts are not easy to reconcile. The professional theatre, whatever the virtues it undoubtedly possesses, is a world of false climaxes, calculated tensions, some hysteria and a good deal of inefficiency. What I write has no obligation to anything other than to itself. My responsibility is not to audiences, critics, producers, directors, actors or to my fellow men in general, but to the play in hand, simply.
I have usually begun a play in quite a simple manner; found a couple of characters in a particular context, thrown them together and listened to what they said, keeping my nose to the ground. The context has always been, for me, concrete and particular, and the characters concrete also. I've never started a play with any kind of abstract idea or theory.
If I were to state any moral precept it might be: beware of the writer who puts forward his concern for you to embrace, who leaves you in no doubt of his worthiness, his usefulness, his altruism, who declares that his heart is in the right place, and ensures that it can be seen in full view, a pulsating mass where his characters ought to be. This kind of writer clearly trusts words absolutely. I have mixed feelings about words myself. So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken. My characters tell me so much and no more, with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, their history. You and I, the characters which grow on a page, most of the time we're inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, obstructive, unwilling.
But it's out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where under what is said, another thing is being said. Given characters who possess a momentum of their own, my job is not to impose upon them, not to subject them to a false articulation. The relationship between author and characters should be a highly respectful one, both ways. And if it's possible to talk of gaining a kind of freedom from writing, it doesn't come by leading one's characters into fixed and calculated postures, but by allowing them to carry their own can, by giving them legitimate elbow-room. It is in the silence that they are most evident to me.
There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smokescreen. When true silence falls, we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.
We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase, "failure of communication".I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming."
Returning to that striking opening thought, that the task of a writer is to write for no-one but himself, I'm reminded of Toby Whithouse, when his TV series Being Human was at the height of its popularity, responding is an interview to that old conker of a question And finally, what advice would you give to an aspiring TV scriptwriter today? His answer has sustained me through many rejections, though I'd have changed the last word. I'd aim for satisfaction rather than wealth.
"You should never write for an audience. The only thing that defines you as a writer is your own voice and so nurturing and defining that individual voice is the most important thing you can do. Every time you write a script or a manuscript or whatever, say to yourself, “this will never ever be performed” or “no one else will ever read this”. Because when you do that it liberates the work. It means that you are just writing for yourself and gradually defining and sculpting your own voice. Ultimately, it is that voice that is going to make you successful, that is going to make you happy. It’s also that voice that will be the thing you rely on for the rest of your career so the moment you start writing to please this person, that person, an agent or an audience, you’re diluting the very thing that makes you different. You can be inspired by people, you can be influenced by people, but you should never change for people because the thing that makes you unique is going to be the thing that makes you rich."
It's from the Introduction to his collected plays published by Faber and I'm intrigued enough to look further at this transcript of a speech made in 1962 ~ in Bristol ~ to the National Student Drama Festival. In 2008, under the heading The Echoing Silence, the Guardian published a digest of this piece a fitting obituary for the writer whose final writing voice was not quiet but vociferous against war and political oppression. Here's a further digest general thoughts in that article: the personal stuff is fascinating too:
"The theatre is a large, energetic, public activity. Writing is, for me, a completely private activity; a poem or a play, no difference. These facts are not easy to reconcile. The professional theatre, whatever the virtues it undoubtedly possesses, is a world of false climaxes, calculated tensions, some hysteria and a good deal of inefficiency. What I write has no obligation to anything other than to itself. My responsibility is not to audiences, critics, producers, directors, actors or to my fellow men in general, but to the play in hand, simply.
I have usually begun a play in quite a simple manner; found a couple of characters in a particular context, thrown them together and listened to what they said, keeping my nose to the ground. The context has always been, for me, concrete and particular, and the characters concrete also. I've never started a play with any kind of abstract idea or theory.
If I were to state any moral precept it might be: beware of the writer who puts forward his concern for you to embrace, who leaves you in no doubt of his worthiness, his usefulness, his altruism, who declares that his heart is in the right place, and ensures that it can be seen in full view, a pulsating mass where his characters ought to be. This kind of writer clearly trusts words absolutely. I have mixed feelings about words myself. So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken. My characters tell me so much and no more, with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, their history. You and I, the characters which grow on a page, most of the time we're inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, obstructive, unwilling.
But it's out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where under what is said, another thing is being said. Given characters who possess a momentum of their own, my job is not to impose upon them, not to subject them to a false articulation. The relationship between author and characters should be a highly respectful one, both ways. And if it's possible to talk of gaining a kind of freedom from writing, it doesn't come by leading one's characters into fixed and calculated postures, but by allowing them to carry their own can, by giving them legitimate elbow-room. It is in the silence that they are most evident to me.
There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smokescreen. When true silence falls, we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.
We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase, "failure of communication".I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming."
Returning to that striking opening thought, that the task of a writer is to write for no-one but himself, I'm reminded of Toby Whithouse, when his TV series Being Human was at the height of its popularity, responding is an interview to that old conker of a question And finally, what advice would you give to an aspiring TV scriptwriter today? His answer has sustained me through many rejections, though I'd have changed the last word. I'd aim for satisfaction rather than wealth.
"You should never write for an audience. The only thing that defines you as a writer is your own voice and so nurturing and defining that individual voice is the most important thing you can do. Every time you write a script or a manuscript or whatever, say to yourself, “this will never ever be performed” or “no one else will ever read this”. Because when you do that it liberates the work. It means that you are just writing for yourself and gradually defining and sculpting your own voice. Ultimately, it is that voice that is going to make you successful, that is going to make you happy. It’s also that voice that will be the thing you rely on for the rest of your career so the moment you start writing to please this person, that person, an agent or an audience, you’re diluting the very thing that makes you different. You can be inspired by people, you can be influenced by people, but you should never change for people because the thing that makes you unique is going to be the thing that makes you rich."
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